—“In the Name of the Best Within Us”—
21 September 2011 23h01 local
NH Zurbano, Madrid, Spain
-“In the Name of the Best Within Us”—
So.. umm.. *head scratch*.. my journey to Madrid was one of my smoothest international travel excursions to date. I went to my gate in Heathrow, with my mouth completely agape. Apparently you check in before boarding as I said before. However this particular gate had three shuttle buses to deliver everyone to the plane itself which was… nowhere near the gate itself. No big deal.
Anyway, I sat myself down and promptly fell asleep. I was at the back of the plane so deplaning was a little less than. Nonetheless, I found my way out of security (don’t ask my why you had to go up a floor then down two, then take a train to the main terminal, pick up back, then go down a half level, get the train ticket, then go down two more floors to the actual train boarding area (Anden 1).
The metro is totally legit and here’s why. The cars are all connected. If you wanted to go from the first car to the last car.. you could WHILE being on the train. I think I got too excited at this fact. The other part of my excitement was due to the realization that in order to get out or onto the train, the doors have to be opened. They don’t automatically open in the event there’s no one there. I though this to be pretty cool. I couldn’t press any of the buttons.. you know having two bags, a jacket and sweater to deal with.
The only problem was my misjudgment on where I was. I was so close to the hotel when I first rose from subterranean level. However, I turned right instead of left. It made for an interesting excursion. I finally asked for directions when I saw somewhere where I could do so. I also found a Starbucks (potential wifi.. let’s hope.) And I kind of took a tour of a major Madrid roadway artery (Paseo de La Castellana) while essentially circling the rotary Plaza Dr. Marañón. Yes I call them rotaries. Deal.
Upon my arrival at the hotel, it took me a minute to recall enough Spanish to say “I am supposed to stay here.” Nonetheless, we made some calls and I forgot the institution name that I was supposed to have mentioned. That would have saved me fifteen minutes. But I got online and responded to a few e-mails.
Then I took a well-deserved nap after taking some pictures of my hotel room. I like the space. My nap was awesome. I woke up only an hour later, but sat around and finally decided to not be depressed and be productive. I went downstairs to get on the internet (why there’s only free wifi in the lobby for half hour intervals is beyond me) so I would get homesick. I talked to some people wh happened to be online and updated Facebook statuses so people would know where I am. You know, because people need to know these things.. well my friends anyway.
I finally ran across my co-worker. She’s at a different location in Northern Madrid, but we still got to meet and say hello. It was nice to meet people. I keep forgetting that part of my joie de vivre comes from having people to talk to and being around people. I think I moved to the correct city. So now here I am updating everyone about all of this (though updates to the internet are incorrect from when they were written—see timestamp above).
So here I am, reading my packet about things I have to take care of in Spain (you know, bank account, acquainting myself with an actual map of the place, and listening to mah music).
Remember: music, people, thoughts. I’m going to make this trip worthy of myself. We go about our lives much like I’m doing: in the name of the best within us.
